Atlanta Braves: 5 early keys to beating the Cardinals in the NLDS

5.  Don’t Expect Gifts

As good as the Braves defense has been this season, St. Louis has been better.  The Cardinals rarely beat themselves defensively.

Atlanta has taken advantage of such miscues from others all year… but those will be few and far between in this series.

As one key metric, St. Louis has allowed 46 unearned runs this season.  Atlanta?  65 of them.

That’s 9th best in baseball for St. Louis (the A’s have just 34) while the Braves are actually at 24th in such gifts.  The worst by far are the Mariners (95) and Pirates (80).

Here’s another stat:  through Friday, they’ve committed 63 errors… best in all of baseball by 5.  The Braves are 4th best at 73.

Breakdown

Their corner outfielders are not scary as defenders – Marcell Ozuna and Dexter Fowler have a combined 7 outfield assists, but watch out for Harrison Bader – he has 8 by himself along with 10 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS).

Their infield is also quite capable up the middle with 16 DRS for Kolton Wong at second base and 12 for SS Paul DeJong.  As a team, the Cards are the best in baseball at both of those positions by that stat.

Of note:  Wong is now hurt with what’s been described as a ‘mild’ hamstring strain.  He’ll have close to 2 weeks to recover, but he is telling people that he’s optimistic about the injury.

Paul Goldschmidt is having something of a ‘down’ year for him, but he can still pick it at first.. ranking a bit better than Freddie Freeman in most categories.  His DRS is 6; Freeman’s is 5.

If there’s a strong defensive advantage for the Braves in the infield, it’s at third base:  Josh Donaldson is having a crazy-good year, better than Tommy Edman.  That said, the metrics give Edman extra points for better range overall.

Either way, everything they give up will need to be earned.